No, that is not necessary. Typing cur will match 
Currently working on, and act will match 
To action
However, I prefer changing tag colors to using emojis.
Those tags are applied manually when I’m working on things. DT autofills the tag, so I don’t need to type the emoji every time. I just write “curr’ in the tag field and DT presents the " Currently working on” tag.
If you’re applying tags manually, DT presents the matching tag during typing, Aside from my year tags (they are all short and too similar: 2021, 2022, etc.) I rarely type out a tag in full as DT will find it after a couple of letters.
For me, yes. DT’s search functions are very powerful and I do make use of them, but equally I do enjoy navigating my databases visually (hence using groups) and often I know where a file is even if I cannot remember its name. I consider browsing through a group the same as browsing the shelves of a library. The group gets me to the right shelf, and it’s nice sometimes just to scan all the titles along the shelf and see what there is.
By default all my groups are sorted by file title, but when I’m looking for something specific I will often sort the group by tag. That shows me what types of file are in the group and any that have pending work associated with them.
You want a smart group for that, It groups items together based on the criteria you set. I don’t use smart groups (not for any reason, I’ve just not needed to), but the manual will explain what to do and I imagine the Take Control of DevonThink book will have examples.
This discussion has proven very useful to me.
Metaphors that don’t work for me:
- Documents are in groups but they have tags. Huh? The document isn’t inside anything. It’s all just bits.
- Groups separate things and tags collect them together? No! Each group is, for me, a collection of documents related to a project or an area of responsibility. I’ve been working that way for 40 years. (Sorry, @DTLow!)
However, there are a few ways of thinking that work for me:
- Groups are vertical, tags are horizontal.
- Groups are locations (as @MsLogica says). Tags are characteristics of documents.
- Tags are for types of files (again, @MsLogica suggests this). When I finish the draft of a report, that draft needs a specific Microsoft Word format. I can tag a document “template,” and then be able to find it again when I next finish a report, which could be months later.
Disclaimer: I am not disagreeing with anyone here. I do not claim to know the one true way to use groups and tags.
Second disclaimer: I know that some of the points in the second group contradict the points in the first group. These are all metaphors, and metaphors don’t need to make sense to be useful.
I have a very structured list of permanent tags, but I occasionally use temporary tags for specific purposes. I forgot to mention that when I clip articles I get the author’s tags as well, whether I want them or not. Some authors use several variants of the same tag, which is counter-productive for my purposes. I use smart rules to either remove all or specific recurrent tags from clipped articles, which keeps everything consistent and tidy.
I did look again at nested tags, but still prefer single level for my purposes. That seems to tie in better with my system of organisation. I am using nested tags in Drafts as a trial. I would be interested to hear arguments in favour of nested tags.
DEVONthink gives you full control over this. You can just disable any automatic tagging. No need for smart rules—unless you do want some of the tags, of course. See Getting Started > Tagging > Tagging Sources in the manual.
I’m guessing these are keywords. What are your Settings in File > Import ?
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Thank you!!!
I was completely unaware of the setting in RSS preferences. This has been the main source of imported tags. I have unchecked the option and will see what happens.
I have never ticked any of the check boxes in Files preferences to convert metadata to tags.
My smart rules for tag removal work well, but it will be even better not to need them. I use other smart rules to add my own tags.
Just some additional information…
Hi, @Mitch_Wagner . Could it be that you are not yet familiar with the Tag Filter feature?
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